Here’s some remarkable testimony from the suppression hearing in State v. Barnes, handed down yesterday by the Ohio Court of Appeals, in which an officer searched through a suspect’s pockets and found drugs. The officer had already frisked the suspect for weapons and found nothing, but then searched him again on the suggested ground that […]
Before winning the presidential election last month, Donald Trump made immigration and border issues—and particularly his promise to carry out the “largest deportation operation in American history”—a centerpiece of his campaign. News coverage of polling on mass deportation indicated that large shares of Americans were on board with Trump’s plan, which could target between 15 […]
Happy Tuesday and welcome to another edition of Rent Free. This week’s newsletter takes an extended look at the surprise passage of a “downzoning” ban in North Carolina that effectively prevents local governments from tightening zoning restrictions on your property unless you provide express written consent for them to do so. North Carolina’s Surprise Ban […]
Since publishing an article yesterday about the Senate’s upcoming vote on a bill to bestow better Social Security benefits on some retired public sector workers, I’ve received dozens of emails arguing that the current rules governing Social Security are deeply unfair. I agree with the emailers, but not for the reasons they state. Still, this […]
Last month, Washington was in a tizzy about whether President Trump could use the adjournment power as a means to create a recess, and then make recess appointments for his cabinet member. That frenzy seems to have died down, but scholars continue to investigate the issue. There are two primary legal questions to consider about […]
The most heartbreaking story out of the Syrian revolution last week was the opening of the prisons. Over 130,000 people had disappeared into the Syrian prison system, notorious for torturing and killing inmates. As rebels began freeing prisoners who had been held incommunicado for years or even decades, the families of other missing persons scoured […]
Child tax credit battles: Sen. Josh Hawley (R–Mo.) is pitching the idea of raising the child tax credit from $2,000 per child to $5,000 per child and allowing parents to take advantage of such credit not only once the child is born but also retroactively for the year prior when the mother was pregnant. This […]
From Mayfield v. Missouri House of Representatives, decided Friday by Eighth Circuit Judge Jane Kelly, joined by Judges Lavenski Smith and Jonathan Kobes: On August 3, 2020, while employed in the assistant clerk’s office of the Missouri House of Representatives …, Mayfield sent an email to Elijah Haahr, the Speaker of the House, and Dave […]
From Judge William Alsup’s opinion Thursday in Dangaard v. Instagram, LLC (N.D. Cal. 2024): The public enjoys the right to know to whom the public courts provide relief (or not). Filings “more than tangentially related to the merits of a case” may be sealed only for “compelling reasons.” That “standard applies to most judicial records,” […]
From yesterday’s decision in Blackwell v. Nocerini, written by Sixth Circuit Judge Eric Murphy and joined by Chief Judge Jeffrey Sutton and Judge John Bush: After Mark Blackwell criticized the city manager of a small Michigan city, the manager complained about him to the police. Two officers convinced a prosecutor to charge Blackwell with stalking. […]